FUNcube-1 battery charging has now been completed
The final battery charge before launch
More news from the integration clean room has just been received from Gerard:
Today was the second full day of the checkout campaign at Yasny and today’s theme was charging. Work on the ISIPOD with FUNcube-1 started with ZAcube doing a final charging session followed by a quick health check, which the satellite passed.
At 12:30 local time it was finally time to remove the ABF plug from FUNcube-1 after the other satellites had been protected. This and the insertion of the umbilical went very smoothly. After connecting the umbilical to the charger and powering the charger, the battery low light came on.
After having a late lunch I decided to start charging the FUNcube-1 battery at 15:00 local time. I then realized that I had yet to connect the satellite battery switch on the charger unit and that the battery low light being on was the normal state when no battery is connected to the charger. When I then connected the battery the battery low level subsequently went off.
I pressed the “charge” button, but as expected, exactly nothing happened 🙂 The battery was still at the correct pre-launch charge level and no significant self discharge had occurred since the spacecraft was placed in its ISIPOD in Delft early in September.
The official sequence of events was:
15:00 local time
* Re-connected FUNcube-1 charger to FUNcube-1 satellite (umbilical was already attached)
* Battery low level indicator was ON
* Connected satellite battery on the charger front panel
* Battery low level indicator switched OFF
15:18 local time
* Pressed charge button, no change in led status was observed
15:19 local time
* Disconnected satellite battery
* Battery low level indicator switched back ON
Insertion and glueing of the ABF is scheduled for tomorrow morning before we leave the launch base. After that we will leave the launch base at approximately 1:30 PM local time for our journey back to The Netherlands, where we are scheduled to land at 18:00 Dutch time on Thursday.
Greetings from Yasny!
Gerard
